Comunicati Stampa

24.02.2014

Prospective study on SCCA-IgM as predictor of HCC development in HCV+ cirrhotic patients presented at the 47th AISF Meeting

About 30% of the patients with chronic hepatitis develop a progressive liver disease and one of the most intriguing issues is the detection of non invasive markers for fibrosis staging and disease progression.
Results from a prospective study carried out by the Department of Medicine, DIMED, University of Padua on SCCA-IgM as predictor of fibrosis progression in chronic hepatitis C and of HCC development in HCV cirrhosis have been presented at the 47th Meeting of the Italian Association for the Study of the Liver (AISF), held in Rome, Italy, February 20-21, 2014. In the study 70 patients with cirrhosis (M/F: 52/18) were consecutively enrolled and followed up for a median period of 53 months and SCCA-IgM complexes were evaluated by Hepa-IC (XEPTAGEN) in relation to disease outcome. In patients with HCV cirrhosis SCCA-IgM was highly predictive of HCC development and could be considered as a prognostic tool for the subclassification of cirrhotic patients.
The study confirms earlier reports (OJGas. 2:56-61. 2012, PLoS ONE. 7:e40658. 2012, J Viral Hepat. 15:246-9. 2008, Int J Cancer. 119:735-40. 2006) strengthening the importance of SCCA-IgM for monitoring patients at higher risk for HCC development.